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New York State’s Mohicans
in Literature
Warren F. Broderick
The treatment of New York State’s Native Americans in fiction, poetry, and
drama follows the dual stereotype found in these literary genres—and in popular
thought in general—across the United States from the beginning of American
settlement.1 Native Americans depicted in these works could be classified as
either brutish, evil, ignoble savages, or their honorable, sagacious, noble counterparts. The majority are portrayed as bloodthirsty, ignorant, and evil. American
history (especially King Philip’s War, the Colonial wars between Great Britain
and France, and the American Revolution) demonstrated that Native Americans
were capable of unspeakable barbarism. Well-publicized incidents of cruelty, such
as the killing of Jane McCrea and the Cherry Valley “massacre”—however isolated they were from a larger historical perspective—justified this portrayal.
The noble savage was not invented by James Fenimore Cooper, as some
believe, but was present in American literature (along with its ignoble counterpart) from colonial times. Many works included at least one such character.
Literature, after all, reflected history, and American readers were aware of a few
truly noble savages, such as Pocahantas, Massasoit, and Squanto.
The noble savage, considered an exception to the norm, served as a convenient foil to the ignoble savage in literary themes and plots. Noble savages were
distinguished by their sagacity, even temperament, generosity, and other virtues
lacking in most of their brethren. More important, noble savages were intelligent
and thoughtful enough to recognize that their race was doomed to extinction
from manifest destiny, a concept that justified the onrush of expanding white
settlement across the nation and the seizure of Native American lands. Despite
possessing these ennobling qualities, even the noblest of savages is often depicted
as inferior to his white counterparts.
The majority of Native American literary characters seem unreal to the modern reader. In fact, the “wooden Indians” of literature provide little information
on the lives of any real Indians, being for the most part repetitions of the dual stereotypes. Few white authors possessed firsthand knowledge of the tribes depicted
in their works; thus ignorance, as well as racial bias, perpetuated the stereotypes.
For some reason, however, the literary treatment of New York State’s Native
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Americans tends to be more realistic than that in American literature as a whole.
The most realistic depictions are found in novels or short stories; the far fewer
works of poetry and drama tend to be more sentimental and melodramatic.
Very few works dealing with New York’s Native Americans could be considered great literature from a technical standpoint. They are often verbose and
sometimes confusing, filled with bombastic rhetoric and stilted dialogue. Actual
speech by Indians (and by frontiersmen and African-American characters as well)
is contrived, reflecting the biases of the era. Nonetheless, certain works—particularly a few novels and short stories—possess considerable merit in their
portrayal of Native American characters, and they deserve special attention. In
addition, New York’s authors strove, often at great lengths, to present a detailed,
if not always accurate, historical background, including information on Native
American history and lore.
The stereotypical portrayal of New York’s Native Americans continued into
the twentieth century, but to what degree these views arose from lingering racial
bias is impossible to determine. Beginning in the middle of the last century, a
number of authors began to present more sympathetic (if not more realistic) portrayals of Native American characters.
Most poetry and prose dealing with Native Americans in New York concerns
the Iroquois, in part because of the fame of the Six Nations and their Confederacy
and certain renowned Iroquois leaders such as Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant),
Sagoyewatha (Red Jacket), and Ganiodieu (Cornplanter). The Mohicans,
Munsees, Wappingers, and other Algonquian nations are often shown as more
peace-loving and civilized than other tribes. Mohicans appear in twenty-some
works and play significant roles in some of the novels, short stories, poems, and
dramatic works published between 1825 and 2002.
James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) closely adhered to the dual stereotype
of Native American portrayals found in earlier literature and in the popular
culture of his time. Cooper borrowed extensively from other writers, especially
from John Heckewelder’s 1819 work, Account of the History, Manner, and Customs
of the Indian Nations. A number of literary critics and biographers have noticed
how artificial or stereotypical Cooper’s Indian characters seem to be. His most
significant contributions were the development of the memorable character of
the frontiersman and the popularization of historical fiction, in particular with
American colonial, Revolutionary, or frontier themes.
Cooper’s five “Leatherstocking Tales” form a chronological series but were
not published in that order. The first chronologically was The Deerslayer; or, the
First Warpath (1841), where he introduces the young frontiersman Nathaniel
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“Natty” Bumppo in a 1740s adventure set along the Upper
Susquehanna River. In this novel we are also introduced to
one of Cooper’s most famous noble savages, Chingachgook,
the great Delaware chief. Cooper presents Chingachgook’s
son, Uncas, in the next Leatherstocking novel, The Last
of the Mohicans (1826). Uncas is not actually a Mohican
but is of New England Mohegan ancestry. Cooper, unlike
Heckewelder, saw the Mohicans, Delawares, Leni-Lenape,
and all the Algonquian tribes from New England as factions of one large Native
American race. In the preface to the first edition of The Last of the Mohicans,
Cooper makes a complicated and largely unsuccessful attempt to explain these
related tribes; he states that “Mohegan” is merely an anglicized corruption of
“Mohican.” In his preface to the 1831 edition, he simplifies matters by referring
to these tribes as “the same people, or tribes of the same stock.” For his purposes,
any tribal distinctions were irrelevant. Thus the noble Chingachgook and his son
are Mohicans in the context of Cooper’s confused concept of Native American
history. In the third chapter, Chingachgook admits that his people “parted with
their land” in the Hudson Valley after the “Dutch landed, and gave my people
the fire-water.”
French author George Sand was the first to recognize that Chingachgook
was a “great imaginary figure . . . an ally of the whites and a sort of convert to
Christianity” who allowed Cooper, “without too great an affront to the pride
of his country, to plead the cause of the Indians.”2 The Indians who were the
objects of Cooper’s sincere concern were western, for he believed that eastern
Indians were virtually extinct. Not only had the Mohicans and Delawares vanished, but so had the Iroquois, with the exception of “a few half-civilized beings
of the Oneidas, on the reservations of their people in New York.” At the book’s
conclusion Tamenund, the wise Delaware elder, is resigned that “the pale-faces are
the masters of the earth, and the time of the red-men has not yet come again.… I
have lived to see the last warrior of the wise race of the Mohicans.” While Cooper
may have held out hope that western Indians might see better days, he was no
advocate for the Indians of the Northeast, who he sincerely believed had already
disappeared as early as the 1820s.
Four short stories featuring Mohicans appeared in print between 1825 and
1884. In addition, an intriguing legend of the lower Hudson Valley forms the basis
of Francis Herbert’s “The Cascade of Melsingah” (1828). The Indians involved are
Wappingers and Wesquaesgeeks. While referred to by the author as “Mohegans”
(inferring in error they are Mohicans), these tribes, though closely related, are not
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really Mohicans. Thus this highly interesting story is not covered here.
The anonymous “Ben Pie, or The Indian Murderer: A Tale Founded on
Facts” (1825) tells the story of a “real Indian,” a Mohican from Stockbridge,
Massachusetts, and later Stockbridge, Wisconsin.3 The story is set on Papscanee
Island in Rensselaer County, a sacred Mohican place of great antiquity, and relates
how an American officer, Colonel Philip Staats, saves Pie from Indian avengers
in return for Ben having saved the colonel’s life during the Revolutionary War.
The story contains information, most certainly with factual basis, on both the
Mohicans and Iroquois, and on local history and scenery, even though it has been
superficially fictionalized. It recalls interesting interrelationships between Native
Americans and white settlers that are not found in similar works of American
literature.
Some years later, Mary Maria Chase, a resident of East Chatham in Columbia
County, published a fictional account of her visit to the site of a Mohican village
in the hamlet of Brainard, in southern Rensselaer County. “Kaunameek” (1847)
describes the local scenery in great detail.4 Information she gleaned on the settlement came not only from the published writings of the missionary David Brainerd
but also from local residents and from “a half dozen dwarfish, ugly, dark-browed
people” who “paid occasional visits to our part of the country, and who … were the
last poor remnants of the Housatonic Indians.” The “poor enfeebled Housatonics”
probably told Chase the legend of nearby Rattlesnake Mountain that is related in
her story. It involves an elderly Indian woman who lived on top of the mountain.
She overcomes her fear of serpents to spare the “king of the rattlesnakes” when
he visits her cabin. When she spares the old snake and welcomes him into her
cabin, a sweet melody appears from out of nowhere and the “old crone” realizes
that she has pleased her gods.
Nathaniel B. Sylvester, well-known folklorist and author of county histories,
included four Indian tales in his 1884 work Indian Legends of Saratoga and the
Upper Hudson Valley. Sylvester, like Charles Fenno Hoffman before him, spent
much time in the Adirondacks and other rural areas of upstate eastern New York,
collecting interesting folklore on Native Americans and early settlers. Two of
Sylvester’s Indian tales are significant because they feature Mohicans. The first of
these two tales, essentially unaltered, is retold by Joseph Bruchac in his 1992 work,
Turtle Meat and Other Stories.5
In “The Spirit Bride of the Tsa-sa-was-sa,” a band of Mohicans from the present town of Nassau in Rensselaer County (where the Tsatsawassa Creek flows)
settles near the present Yaddo estate in Saratoga Springs.6 At that time the
Mohicans and Mohawks were still at war, and this area was disputed territory. In
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a sudden attack, the Mohawks “like ravenous wolves … scalped and tomahawked”
the defenseless Mohican women “without mercy.” A beautiful young Mohican
woman named A-wo-nunsk flees by canoe across a lake pursued by a Mohawk
warrior. Before her Mohican husband, We-qua-gan, can raise his bow to kill the
Mohawk warrior, the pursuer kills A-wo-nunsk. As a result, the Mohican gods
place a curse on the lake; the sun never shines there, and no Indian, Mohican,
or Mohawk dare visit the lake except We-qua-gan. For years thereafter, even as
an old man, We-qua-gan returns to lament on the spot where his young wife was
murdered. On his final pilgrimage, he sees his wife’s spirit before he falls dead
upon the shore. Light shines again on the lake, and the curse is forever broken.
“The Legend of Diamond Rock,” which also appears in this volume, had previously been published in another of Sylvester’s works in 1877. This tale is set in
Lansingburgh, at a prominent rock outcropping that once had its surface covered
with shining quartz crystals.7 Sylvester had first heard this legend from an aged
Indian he met in the Adirondacks in 1858. While the story’s characters are said
to be the ancestors of the Mohawks, before the great Iroquois Confederacy was
formed, they may have indeed been Mohicans, seeing that the Mohican villages,
Unuwat’s and Monemius’s, were both located in sight of Diamond Rock. In the
story, Mo-ne-ta, the daughter of the venerated sachem Ho-ha-do-ra, keeps a vigil
fire for “five hundred moons” atop the rock, while one of her sons, Ta-en-da-ra,
searches for his brother, O-nas-qua, who has been taken captive by a rival nation.
When Ta-en-da-ra finally arrives carrying his brother’s bones, he celebrates at
the rock with Mo-ne-ta, but the Great Spirit does not approve of their jubilation.
They are struck dead by a bolt of lightning, and ever since, Diamond Rock has
gleamed from “Mo-ne-ta’s tears.” Sylvester collected such folklore with very serious interest, and the basis of this and the previous “Indian tale” may indeed be
genuine Native American legends. Regardless, his presentation of this material in
short fiction is highly noteworthy.
Ann Sophia Stephens (1813-1886), a well-known author of popular fiction
(as well as a magazine editor), penned five nineteenth-century novels that are
significant in part because of their Native American female protagonists. Three
of these were published as dime novels; two others, while later reissued as dime
novels, were first published in serial format in literary magazines in the 1830s. Her
second novel, Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter, appeared in serial
form in The Ladies’ Companion between February and April 1839.8 This novel is
best known today because Irwin P. Beadle selected it for issuance as his first dime
novel in 1860. More significant, its heroine is the Mohican woman Malaeska.
This novel is also important because it deals at such any early date with the con5
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troversial subject of interracial marriage between whites and Indians.
Malaeska, a young Mohican woman living just west of Catskill, is secretly
married to a white hunter named William Danforth, and she is rearing their child.
One day, probably in the early 1660s, her husband is mortally injured in a dispute
with a member of her tribe, forcing the Mohican band to remove to Iroquois
territory in the interior of New York State. Fearing the dangers the Mohicans
might face from the Iroquois, the dying William urges Malaeska to take their son
to New York City to be raised by his family. When the initial shock of having a
mixed-blood grandchild is past, his family agrees to raise the boy as if he were
white and allows Malaeska to remain with him as a nanny, forbidding her to tell
the boy she is his mother. A while later, she attempts to return her son to the
former Mohican territory, but she is unsuccessful and is forced to flee the city
alone. Malaeska finally locates her tribe in central New York, but her execution is
ordered by the tribal elders on the grounds of her deserting the Mohicans to live
with white men in a time of peril.
Malaeska’s life is spared by a Mohican warrior who holds strong feelings for
her and recognizes the hardships she has endured. She returns to Catskill and
lives in a hut on the site of the former Mohican village. In the meantime, her
son, now known as Arthur Jones, has moved to Catskill village and is engaged to
marry a young white woman. They occasionally visit Malaeska, not knowing her
real identity. Finally, she is compelled to tell her son about his ancestry and birth.
Arthur cannot accept his mixed-blood heritage and leaps to his death. Malaeska
struggles to rescue her son’s body but dies from the exertion. Tragedy has befallen
all those involved, the victims of an “unnatural marriage.” Malaeska is a highly
sentimental, melodramatic novel, and while it may not constitute great literature,
its story is truly remarkable, presenting possibly the greatest of all American tragedies. Few subsequent authors of American fiction would address such a controversial subject, and do it so openly.
One of the more popular of the longer works from the dime novel era (from
1860 to 1910-1915) was David Murdoch’s The Dutch Dominie of the Catskills; or,
the Times of the Bloody Brandt (1861).9 This lengthy, romantic adventure is set in
1777 to 1778 in the Catskill-Kingston area, and includes ample information on
local scenery and Hudson Valley Dutch folklore. Indians are depicted as ignoble
savages who “descended upon the peaceable” settlers “like a hungry . . . wolf on
the fold.” While Joseph Brant sometimes spared his white settler friends, he is
depicted here as cunning and bloodthirsty as he leads the attack and burning
of Esopus. Even more ignoble are Kiskataam and Shandaagen, two local Indians
(understood to be Mohawks of Mohican descent) who kidnap young Margaret
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Clinton (even though she is believed to be the daughter of the British colonial
governor) and Elsie Schuyler, daughter of the local Dutch dominie. The women
are rescued from their captors by Brant and his army, not wishing harm to come
to any Loyalists. In the end, Brant and his party are driven back to central New
York and peace is restored to the Hudson Valley.
In one particularly interesting chapter entitled “The Last Indian Battle of the
Hudson,” an elderly Dutchman recalls at length a fight between Mohawks and
Mohicans that supposedly took place on a nearby island (referred to in the tale as
Wanton Island, possibly Rogers Island) in 1760. The last military conflict between
these two tribes took place over a century earlier, in 1628, and other details in
the novel are likely erroneous as well. Nonetheless, the inclusion of this chapter
demonstrates Murdoch’s deep interest in the Native American and Dutch legacy
of the area.10
T[homas] C. Harbaugh’s The Hidden Lodge; or, The Little Hunter of the
Adirondacks (1878), a little-known dime novel, is a wildly ridiculous adventure
set in the Adirondacks in the early 1800s.11 The hero, Paul Burleigh (known as
“Piney Paul”), is a seventeen-year-old woodsman who lives in a rugged, inaccessible
area along with Nokomis, the “last of his race” (known as the Upas), and a few
Mohicans. The villain, Cecil Crane, leads an expedition to locate a sixteen-yearold girl named Cicely who had been kidnapped by Indians in New York City as
a baby. His real plan is to kill the girl and steal her inheritance. He is joined by
two crusty hunters, Tarsus Nightwell and Simon Oldfoot, and Red Loon, said to
be one of the last of the Mohicans. Nokomis and Red Loon speak with many
“Ughs” and are depicted as noble savages with “brawny chests” who possess superhuman strength as well as sagacity and woodcraft. Into the mix appear two other
Mohicans: Ocotoc, known as the “Ogre,” who is described as being “old, misshapen and dwarfish;” and his “Amazon-like” teenage daughter, Pelosee, who is
depicted as a witch-like siren and who develops a crush on Piney Paul, whom she
helps survive the “pit of wolves.” Cicely, named Little Arrow by her captors, has
been under the care of the young Mohican warrior Red Eagle, who is “a veritable
Indian Apollo”:
His form was symmetrical, his clothes close fitting; and, after
the backwoods manner, fashionable; his scalp-lock oiled, like
the hair of the dandy. In face he was, for one of his race,
remarkably handsome; his eyes were large, lustrous, and full of
expression.
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Subsequent pages contain a series of wild adventures that can barely be
followed, and in the end the villains (including another band of Mohicans
who pursue Nokomis) are all killed and Piney Paul marries Little Arrow. “The
wild mountains lost their little hunter, and Right, triumphing in the wilderness,
thrived in the city” (where she presumably receives her inheritance) “to the
delight of honest people.”
The sentimental and melodramatic Hawkeye: A Sequel to the Deerslayer of
James Fenimore Cooper (1897) by Nancy Huston Banks (who wrote under the
pseudonym George H. Preston) is modeled closely after Cooper and set in the
years immediately following the original book to supply a “missing link” in the
Cooper chronology.12 The author’s treatment of Native Americans closely mimics
Cooper’s, but because the book is far less well-written, these stereotypes are more
readily apparent. Hawkeye, who speaks in unbelievable “frontierese,” is joined by
Chingachgook in a series of hair-raising adventures involving captures, escapes,
and rescues of innocent young white folks from evil Mingos (Mohawks) and
Hurons. The action takes place all over upstate New York; the heroes even find
time to pay a visit to Niagara Falls. Hawkeye is portrayed as a truly “remarkable,”
almost godlike person. One of the young women he rescues comments that “he
combines more wisdom with his humble capacity” and that “his words are simple
and ungrammatical but his thoughts are lofty and uplifting.”
Likewise, Chingachgook behaves nobly; he has a “true heart” and “is the equal
of any redskin alive.” While the white captives feel uneasy about Chingachgook’s
desire to collect the scalps of his enemies, Hawkeye insists this is merely the “red
man’s way.” In fact, the entire race of Delawares is said to be “an upright nation.”
“Though a much scandalized people, they stand by every promise made to a frind
[sic].” The most ignoble savages are the Hurons aligned with the French; they are
compared to wild animals. The French are evil for inciting the Hurons’ “bloody
instincts and fierce passions” into “all sorts of deviltries.” Hawkeye and his partner
possess no less hatred for the Iroquois, longtime enemies of the Delawares whose
shaky allegiance to the British cannot be trusted.
Hawkeye has not become an Indian hater like Hurry Harry and some other
frontiersmen, and while he killed many Hurons and Mingos, “there was not a
vengeful feeling against his foes.” His “wonderful sense of justice . . . recognized
the naturalness… of their passionate expressions” as part of their “red natur
[sic].” The author discusses the issue of “red gifts versus white” a number of times.
Hawkeye once tells Chingachgook: “I don’t find fault with red natur because you
have taken… scalps. Your gifts are that way.” Later he informs a fair young white
captive that Wish-ta-Wish (Chingachgook’s wife) will value “the horrid lookin’
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things [scalps] more than she would all the jewels in the settlemints” because “it’s
red natur, gals, and we can’t go agin it. They look on a scalp as a mark of victory
and a badge or honor.”
Mohicans do not appear in another literary work until 1914. Robert
Chambers (1865-1933) was one of the most prolific American novelists of the
period, producing 87 books between 1894 and 1931. Long dismissed by critics,
Chambers’ work, in particular his supernatural fiction, is now attracting more
serious interest. He belonged to an affluent family that resided both in New York
City and on an estate in Broadalbin, Saratoga County. Much of his time was
devoted to studying the early history of New York, with which he became quite
conversant. Six of his novels, including his successful “Cardigan” series, dealt
with New York’s Revolutionary history and include Native American characters.
They tend to be lengthy, wordy, and melodramatic romantic-adventure stories.
Indians allied with the British are generally depicted as ignoble savages, while the
Oneidas, Mohicans, and other nations aligned with the Americans are portrayed
as noble savages.
The Hidden Children (1914) is particularly interesting because of Chambers’
lengthy portrayal of the heroic Mohican Mayaro, who joins the American forces
in the lower Hudson Valley as a scout and leads them safely through dangerous
country to take part in the Sullivan-Clinton campaign in the Southern Tier.13
He becomes very friendly with a white scout, Euan Loskiel; as a result, Loskiel
learns more and more about the proud heritage of the Mohicans and other tribes
that sided with the American cause. Mayaro continues to impress the soldiers
in his care with his bravery, fortitude, and remarkable knowledge. Soon, they
trust him implicitly. A major proclaims that Mayaro “is a great chief among his
people—great in war, wise in council and debate . . . is welcome in this army at
the headquarters of this regiment. He is now one of us.” Other Native Americans
in the party include Stockbridge Indians, Oneidas, and a Wyandotte. The party
survives many perilous situations, not without loss of life, and eventually joins the
main American force in time to participate in the capture of Catherine’s Town.
A work of some 600 pages (and full of complicated subplots of romance
and intrigue), The Hidden Children stands out for its detailed portrayal of the
Mohican sagamore and his Indian companions. Mayaro believes strongly that
the Mohicans are still a free nation, even if they have been defeated and to some
degree assimilated by the Mohawks during the previous century. He remains
faithful to his heritage and has no use for any of the Iroquois who have aligned
themselves with the British. Once, in a lengthy encampment scene, Mayaro and
his Indian brethren discuss at length the similarities and differences of their reli9
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gion, dress, and customs. Regardless of how accurately Chambers provides the
details, this scene is virtually without equal in New York State fiction up to that
date and not seen again until Mohican characters appear in more recent novels.
Painted for battle in the Mohican tradition, Mayaro is not portrayed as hideous
(as many previous authors would have done), but as majestic and elegant. As he
rides proudly into Albany with the victorious forces at the novel’s conclusion, he
“truly presented a superb figure.” Chambers provides no indication that Mayaro
will fade out of existence like other noble savages before him, or that he represents
that last of his race.
Kenneth Roberts penned some of the best novels about the colonial and
Revolutionary era produced in the last century. New York’s Native Americans
appear in two of these works, and while they are not major characters, their
portrayal is quite noteworthy. Roberts abandoned the worn-out stereotypes and
depicted Indians as individuals with distinct personalities.
In Northwest Passage (1937), the first part of the novel
deals with Robert Rogers’ expedition to destroy the St.
Francis Indian village in Canada.14 The two principal
Native American characters are John Konkapot Jr. and
“Jacob” Nawnawampeteoonk (known as “Captain Jacobs”),
two Mohicans from Stockbridge, Massachusetts, who serve
Rogers’ Rangers as guides and spies. Initially, Konkapot
appears as a pathetic figure, in a state of intoxication, but
as the book progresses his value to Rogers becomes more
and more apparent. Because of the manner in which he was painted for battle,
Captain Jacobs first appears nightmarish to the narrator, who is surprised to
see Rogers treat the Indian as formally as he would any British officer. Rogers
has great faith in the intelligence information gathered by the Mohicans, and
they are said to be as brave and faithful in combat as “civilized people.” On the
other hand, the Mohawks who assist Rogers “are accustomed to do as they will …
disobey orders if they find those orders displeasing.” Captain Jacobs is also helpful in dealing with the Mohawks, with whom he has good relations. When the
party arrives at the St. Francis village (which has been well scouted in advance
by the Mohicans), Rogers and his men spare the elderly, children, and women
from death. Prior to their release, Captain Jacobs (under Rogers’ orders) instructs
them to inform their tribe that raids on white settlements—which their men have
conducted for years—would no longer be tolerated.
Don Cameron Shafer’s Smokefires in Schoharie (1938) concerns the early
Palatine Lutheran settlers in the Schoharie Valley, from their arrival in the 1740s
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through the American Revolution, as seen through the eyes
of one of the author’s ancestors.15 The Mohawks and the
early settlers live on reasonably friendly terms, with most of
the tension between them arising from the marked differences in their cultures. The Lutheran minister, for example,
finds it difficult to understand the Indians’ sexual and marital
practices. Still, once each group learns the other’s language
and customs, they become fairly good friends. The Mohawks
laugh at the peculiar habits of the Germans as often as the settlers are amused by
strange Indian ways. The Mohawks have no objection to the settlement of a small
area of their territory so long as the number of settlers is relatively small. The
elderly Mohican sachem Etowankaun, a frequent visitor from Stockbridge, warns
the Mohawks that the whites will take more and more of their land. He relates
how the whites seized nearly all of the traditional Mohican territory, even though
the Indians were always friendly and accommodating. At the book’s conclusion,
Etowankaun’s prophecy becomes true: His own grave is symbolically plowed over
by a white farmer, and the Mohawks realize they were “fools” to sell so much land
to the settlers.
Shafer’s treatment of the pre-Revolutionary period is especially noteworthy
for its depiction of the worsening relationship between whites and Indians. His
portrayal of the Iroquois changes as they turn against the settlers and side with
the British and Tories. Even in times of peace, the reader is reminded, “it must
not be forgotten that they were wild men . . . not wholly to be trusted.” The cruelties once reserved for their traditional Indian enemies (such as the Hurons) are
now turned against their former white neighbors. Except for a few of the elderly
who are too old or weak to care, the rest of the “Schoharie Indians” are forced
to side with the forces of Brant and Walter Butler. The accounts of the raids on
Cobleskill and Cherry Valley are not unlike those in most other literary works;
the author more or less justifies the destruction of Iroquois villages committed by
American forces in the Sullivan-Clinton campaign.
Allena Champlin Best issued two novels for young
people under the pseudonym “Erick Berry” that were set
in Dutch New Netherlands. Both include Native American
characters. Hudson Frontier (1942) is set in Fort Orange in
1690.16 The local Mohicans are said to be “peaceful and
friendly,” as are the Mohawks with whom the white settlers are engaged in the fur trade. One of these Mohawks,
Antlered Deer, is a strong ally of the settlers. He assists the
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book’s hero in locating a lost companion in the woods. The search party discovers that a corrupt Albany official has been conducting illegal trading with the
Caughnawaga, or “Praying Mohawks,” barbaric “dogs” who served the French “in
their cruelest raids on Iroquois territory” and who would kill Antlered Deer on
sight.
Seven Beaver Skins (1948) is also set in the Albany area
(although 30 years earlier) and involves the adventures of
Kasper de Selle, a young Dutch fur trader.17 In her foreword,
Best provides some historical background, including distinguishing between the Mohawks, commonly known as the
“Maguas,” and the Mohicans, mistakenly referred to as the
“Mohegans.” Because this novel covers the period when the
Mohicans were still flourishing in the Hudson River Valley,
they figure prominently. One of the Dutch settlers notes that
since the Maguas have acquired more guns in trade, they have begun to drive
the Mohicans out of the area. The Maguas strike the hero as “rougher” and more
“fierce looking” than the Mohicans, and were “cannibals too from all accounts.”
Fortunately, the Dutch were on good terms with both Indian nations.
As de Selle journeys up the Mohawk Valley, he has the opportunity to visit
several Mohawk villages, which impress him greatly. The author not only provides
a detailed description of a typical village and its longhouses, but also describes
Mohawk customs, games, and trading practices. Aquinachoo, an elderly Mohawk
sachem, leads a delegation downriver to a peace council with the Mohicans.
Great tension prevails at the council, and both the Mohawks and their Dutch
friends are apprehensive about the intentions of the Mohicans. Rightfully so:
the Mohicans, in apparent retaliation over previous Mohawk hostilities, ambush
and murder most of the Mohawk delegation. (The Dutch traders barely escape
unharmed.)18 With escalating conflict between these two Indian nations, the
peaceful times experienced by the Dutch are in jeopardy. Regardless of the inaccuracy of the details, Seven Beaver Skins is nonetheless noteworthy for being one
of the few literary works dealing with Mohican-Mohawk relations.
Alfred B. Street’s poem, “The Indian Mound Near Albany,” (1846) recalls the
Mohicans who inhabited the Valley long ago.19 Street, who would soon become
director of the New York State Library, was living in Albany when this work was
first published. Apparently he was the discoverer of the mound that “towered up”
before him. It is not clear whether the earthwork was on the east or west side of
the Hudson River. Nor can the “narrow creek” and “green island channels” be
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identified with certainty. (It may very well have been Papscanee Creek.) But the
Indians are clearly Mohicans:
Now, as along a reach the vessel glides,
Within some narrow creek the bark canoe
Quick vanishes; as points the prow in shore
The Indian hunter, with half-shrinking form,
Stands gazing, holding idly his long bow;
And as the yacht around some headland turns,
Midst the low rounded wigwams near the brink
Are movements of tumultuous tawny life.
Arnold Hill Bellows’ The Legend of Utsayantha, and Other Folk-lore of the
Catskills (1945) is a small, attractively illustrated volume containing a number
of interesting poems concerning the Mohicans.20 Utsayantha was a legendary
Mohican princess who lived along a lake near Stamford that now bears her name.
The book contains a glossary of names and ample historical footnotes, the result
of the author’s in-depth research into Native American history and lore. In a
footnote to his poem “Teunis, Last of the Mohicans,” Bellows clearly makes the
distinction between the Mohicans and the Mohegans of New England, correcting
the error perpetuated by Cooper and numerous others. The poem concludes:
On the stormy nights of winter,
When the wild winds shook the forest,
And the snowflakes whirled and sifted
Round Mahican wigwams, flitting
Like the silent ghosts at midnight,
In their lodges safely sheltered,
Round the blazing firebrands gathered
All the children as they listened
To this Indian tradition,
To this tale of Utsayantha,
Full of fact and fancy woven,
Full of noble deeds and daring,
Full of savage wiles and cunning,
Full of cherished dreams and shattered.
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In his foreword, Bellows offers a description of Native American folklore—“a
judicious combination of myth and history”—that is commendably accurate and
virtually unique. Both the author and a local school principal advocate the use
of this work in schools “as worthwhile literary material for English classes and as
valuable background material for social studies classes.”
A variety of works, both biographical and fictional, have dealt with the
bravery and self-sacrifice of the Mohawk maiden Kateri (Catherine) Tekakwitha
(1656-1680), who lived at the Mohawk Valley village of Ganadawage. Despite
poor health (the result of contracting smallpox), she became renowned for her
piety and devotion to Christianity. She lived during the era when a number
of Mohawks, including the famous Chief Kryn, were converted by the Roman
Catholic “Black Robes” and relocated to Canada. Kateri was the first Native
American to be beatified (1980) by the Catholic Church.
Details of Kateri’s life have become a puzzling mix of fact and folklore.
Fictional works have tended to be highly moralistic in tone, praising her for her
devotion to Christianity in a world where most Indians worshiped pagan gods. The
first of these is the play The Lily of the Mohawks (Kateri Tekakwitha): An Historical
Romance Drama of the American Indian (1932) by Edward La More. Other works
on Kateri include Robert Holland’s poem “Song of Tekakwitha, the Lily of the
Mohawks” (1942) and at least five novels. These are Kateri of the Mohawks (Marie
Cecilia Buehrle, 1954), White Wampum: The Story of Kateri Tekakwitha (Frances
Taylor Patterson, 1934), Drums of Destiny: Kateri Tekakwitha, 1656 to 1680
(Harold William Sandberg, 1950), Star of the Mohawk: Kateri Tekakwitha (Francis
McDonald, 1958), and Kateri Tekakwitha: Indian Maid (Evelyn M. Brown, 1958).
A substantially better work on the subject is Jack Casey’s 1984 novel, Lily of the
Mohawks.
Even the pagan Mohawks in these works are portrayed as far nobler than
the Hurons, Mohicans, and members of other Algonquian nations who were
their enemies. The Mohicans, in particular, are depicted as being treacherous
and barbaric, rightfully feared enemies of the proud Mohawks. One suspects that
this portrayal is not based on historical interpretation, but rather on the need to
present ignoble savages in opposition to noble savages in a highly moralistic story.
Most of the works provide some account of the August 18, 1669, battle along the
Mohawk River between the Mohawks and a force of New England Indians and a
few less-than-enthusiastic Mohicans. The actual battle ended with no clear winner; in the Kateri literature, however, the Mohawks are shown as the victors.
Mohicans do not appear again in literature until they are featured in historical novels of the modern era. Elizabeth (George) Speare’s The Prospering
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(1967) is one of the few novels—and possibly the best—dealing with Mohicans
at length.21 While most of the work is set in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where
many of New York’s Mohicans were living between the 1730s and 1780s, a few
scenes are set in Kaunameek, the same village described in the 1847 work by Mary
Maria Chase. The novel’s narrator is Elizabeth Williams, one of the children
of Ephraim Williams Sr., who established the settlement of Stockbridge, where
friendly Mohicans and white settlers lived side by side in admittedly uneasy peace
through a period of social upheaval and military conflict. Elizabeth becomes very
friendly with an Indian girl named Catherine (the daughter of “John” Konkapot)
and comes to understand the problems faced by the Mohicans. Overall, The
Prospering presents both a factual and deeply personal account of the Stockbridge
Mohicans and their white neighbors.
Paul Bernard’s Genesee Castle (1970) presents Native Americans in virtually
the same stereotypes used in the previous century.22 The hero, Philip Cochrane,
participates in General Sullivan’s campaign and engages in the destruction of
Iroquois villages without any reservations. The Iroquois are generally shown to
be barbarous enemies of the American soldiers and settlers. There are references to the atrocities (directed by the “furious Indian squaw” Queen Esther) at
Wyoming the previous year. Even the Cayugas’ late plea for mercy and peace with
the Americans is ignored because their nation must “suffer” for their past actions.
The only noble savages in the novel are the faithful Stockbridge Mohican scout
Jehoiakim and the subservient Oneidas, who “offered their help in any way” the
American army wished to utilize them.
Terry Elton’s somewhat confusing The Journey (2002) tells the story of four
people: Thomas Bradford, a wealthy merchant in the 1750s and ’60s; Catharine
Webster, his servant and later bride; and Brian Pearson and Nancy Donovan, two
contemporary New Yorkers inhabited by the spirits of the colonial couple.23 These
spirits bring the action back in time to punish those responsible for Thomas and
Catherine’s untimely deaths. The novel’s Indian characters are Mohicans who
remain in the upper Hudson Valley in a small village somewhere near Albany.
Thomas and Catherine capture their murderers (who killed Thomas’s father
and attempted to steal his inheritance) and have them brought upriver by Soaring
Eagle, a young Mohican chief. While Soaring Eagle is clearly depicted as noble
in his actions and intelligence (he is admired alike by the Indians and whites
he deals with), he is also capable of savagery, and sees that “Mohican justice is
done” by torturing and killing the criminals. This retribution is in part a favor for
Thomas, whom Soaring Eagle regards as his blood brother. One of the more interesting chapters in the book recalls the time in 1757 when Bradford and his father
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met Soaring Eagle and his band while trading in upstate New York. In another
interesting scene near the book’s conclusion, Soaring Eagle and some of his tribe
are called to testify in New York at a trial of swindlers. While some object to these
“savages” giving testimony at a judicial proceeding, Thomas accurately claims that
the Mohicans “speak on the truth. It is their way. Lies and deceit are not acceptable in their world.” The Journey occasionally gets its facts wrong. (For example,
the author claims that the Mohicans were part of the Iroquois Confederacy.)
Nevertheless, it is rather unique and quite interesting.
Paul Block’s Song of the Mohicans: A Sequel to James Fenimore Cooper’s The
Last of the Mohicans (1995) is a lively adventure story that begins immediately
after Cooper’s novel ends.24 The protagonists are Hawkeye and Chingachgook
and a new character, the young and dauntless Astra Van Rensselaer, the beautiful daughter of Hendrick Van Rensselaer, a crusty and bigoted member of the
patroon’s family who lived just outside Albany. The action begins in the Lake
George region and continues into the Mohawk Valley. Astra is determined
to locate her brother, Peter, who had disappeared following the battle of Fort
William Henry. Hawkeye and his partner are on a mission to meet with a mystical
Oneida named Onowara to persuade the Oneidas not to form an alliance with
the French. Onowara turns out to be a long lost older son of Chingachgook, and
the complicated plot and hair-raising adventures render this modern work more
confusing than the memorable work it seeks to imitate.
Block’s treatment of Native Americans follows Cooper’s model. The Iroquois
are noble yet fierce (“a trustworthy and peaceable lot”), and range from the wise
chief Skenandoa to young Oneidas who attempt to burn the heroes at the stake.
For the most part, the French-aligned Canadian Indians are shown to be barbaric.
The scenes in the Oneida camp, where various factions of that nation debate the
French-English issue, are presented in detail and with sensitivity.
While Cooper’s Mohicans, supposedly the last remnant of that nation from
the Hudson Valley, were really two men of New England Mohegan, Block presents them instead as true Mohicans. Chingachgook recalls, for example, how his
tribe had once been powerful in the Hudson Valley, and how they were named
after the great river that had been central to their culture, the “Muhheconnuk.”
Furthermore, in his foreword Block properly notes that the Mohicans were
not extinct, as Cooper had indicated, but lived in Stockbridge, Massachusetts,
Madison County, New York, and now “live on a reservation in Shawano County,
Wisconsin, where they go by their official name: the Stockbridge Indians.”
Robert Moss has authored a trilogy of recent novels focusing on Sir William
Johnson and prominently featuring Native Americans. They are meticulously
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researched, with extensive notes (including references to
specific sources accompanying each chapter). The Firekeeper:
A Narrative of the Eastern Frontier (1995) is a rather complicated novel set between Johnson’s arrival in America and
the Battle of Lake George in 1755.25 Fortunately, it includes
a glossary and a list of Mohawk names with their English
equivalents. Moss devotes considerable space to dreams, shamanism, and psychic healing, as well as Native American
ceremonies, folklore, and daily village life. The book is also noteworthy because
of the in-depth portraits of Johnson’s first wife, Catherine Weisserberg, and the
great Mohawk sachem, Hendrick “Forked Paths.” Hendrick was born a Mohican,
and the subjugation of the Mohicans by the Mohawks in the seventeenth century
is recalled. Hendrick remembers how early white settlers had abused the peaceloving Mohicans and correctly notes that after their subjugation, a number of
Mohicans came to live with and become assimilated by the fiercer Mohawks.
The Interpreter (1997) covers the years between 1709 and
1741 and introduces young Conrad Weiser, who later became
the famous Pennsylvania Indian agent.26 Hendrick “Forked
Paths” also plays a major role in this book, as do, again,
dreams and spirituality. Although the plot is sometimes
difficult to follow, the book does a good job of highlighting
the many problems the Iroquois faced during a period when
the French and British were battling for their allegiance.
This novel also covers the famous 1710 visit of the sachems
(known as the “Four Kings”) to London. At this early date, the Indians were
already questioning the way that their sales of land to the Europeans were being
conducted: “One would have thought that the depossession of the New England
tribes—some of them already reduced to the condition of vaguing drunks and
sellers of brooms—would have been an object lesson for the Mohawks.”
Moss devotes some space to developing the characters of Sayenqueragtha,
or “Vanishing Smoke,” and “Nicholas” Etowankaun, two Mohicans by birth who
became Mohawk sachems. Nicholas, who has led a “wandering life, confused by
the bottle,” is very knowledgeable about New England. In a highly interesting
chapter, he accompanies Conrad Weiser on a secret mission to the New England
coast to search for Captain Kidd’s lost treasure. (Weiser had seen in a dream
what he believed to be the treasure cave.) Weiser’s gradual education in Native
American ways, particularly relating to dreaming and shamanism, is one of the
central themes of the book.
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Sara Donati has also produced a trilogy about early
settlers and their Native American neighbors in the upper
reaches of the West Branch of the Sacandaga River in the
southern Adirondacks. An Englishwoman, twenty-nine-yearold Elizabeth Middleton, settles there with her father and
brother in 1792. The Native American neighbors include the
mixed-blood Bonner family (Daniel, aged 70, and Nathaniel,
his handsome frontiersman son) and a small band of Mohawk
and Mohican descendants. In the first of these novels, Into the Wilderness (1998),
the author is primarily concerned with Elizabeth’s attraction to Nathaniel and
her father’s efforts to marry her off to Richard Todd, a local physician, in part
to relieve his family’s financial problems.27 The area where they settle, called
“Paradise,” is part of lands forfeited by Loyalists, and Dr. Todd’s principal interest
seems to be the acquisition of as much land as possible, including that occupied by
the Bonners and the Indians. In the end, the matter of land ownership is settled
and both whites and Indians appear to resume normal lives as neighbors.
The Indians are generally viewed as harmless by their white neighbors, or, as
Nathaniel bluntly states, they are a few of the remaining Indians that have not
been “beaten into the dust” by the American Revolution. They are considered
to be “good people” for neighbors but “not suitable company for a young unmarried woman [like Elizabeth] or good family.” The heroine, however, spends a great
deal of time with the motley band of Indians (who refer to themselves as the
“Kahnyen’kettaka”), in part because of her attraction to Nathaniel but also because
of her genuine admiration of the Indians. Those who impress her the most are
“Chingachgook” (an elderly Mohican sachem), Falling Day (the Mohawk mother
of Nathaniel’s deceased wife), and Falling Day’s daughter and son, Many-Doves
and Otter. The Indians regularly visit Barktown, a small Mohawk village downriver that was rebuilt after being destroyed by General Clinton in 1779. Life at the
village, including a winter festival and a spring strawberry ceremony, is described
in impressive detail.
Lynda Durrant has written two excellent novels for young adults that are
significant because Mohicans are their principal characters. Both are well
researched and contain a glossary of names, a bibliography, and historical background material. Echohawk (1995) tells the story of Jonathan Spence, a white boy
who is captured and adopted into a Mohican family in the Hudson River Valley in
1738.28 As Echohawk (as he is named by his captors) is assimilated into Mohican
culture, we read about the Indians’ daily life, folklore, religion, and spirituality.
Also touched upon is the relationship between the Mohicans and other Indian
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tribes, especially the powerful Mohawks, who superseded
them as the dominant nation in eastern New York. In spite
of his birth and the fact that the Mohicans had been subjugated and decimated by disease a century before, Echohawk
believes that the Hudson Valley is still Mohican country. But
his father, Glickihagan, wants Echohawk and his younger
Mohican brother, Bamiamneo, to attend a white school. He
believes that Indians should learn English and become better acquainted with the encroaching white society.
Life at the Warners’ school is filled with tension because the students boarding together include whites as well as Indians who come from tribes that have
at some time hated each other. The well-meaning but misguided Warners fail
to understand that Echohawk no longer sees himself as an English boy, and
believe he could become a great missionary to “bring these wretched savages out
of the darkness.” When school is finished, Glickihagan decides to move west to
Ohio with his boys. He reminiscences on important places in his life, especially
Schodack, where he was born, and recalls when Henry Hudson first met the
Mohicans, who were then a strong and populous tribe.
In her subsequent novel, Turtle Clan Journey (1999), Glickihagan faces the loss
of Echohawk to bounty hunters who can receive a ransom for returning whites
from Indian “captivity,” even against their will.29 Echohawk is returned to Albany,
to live with an aunt who attempts to “civilize” him. He manages to escape, and
he and his Mohican family proceed west to the Ohio territory along with some
Munsees and Delawares (two Indian nations that appear in few works of New
York State literature). Echohawk becomes an especially good friend of a young
Munsee named Red Fox. On one occasion, they are captured by Onondagas. The
duo wonders if the Iroquois still practice torture and cannibalism; as Mohicans,
they find such practices abhorrent. They manage to escape and reach Ohio as the
book concludes. The author notes that Glickihagan and Bamiamneo were the
names of actual Mohicans.
Notes
1.
See also Warren F. Broderick, “Fiction Based on ‘Well Authenticated Facts:’ Documenting the
Birth of the American Novel,” Hudson Valley Regional Review 4 (September, 1987), 1-37.
2.
Quoted in George Dekker and John P. McWilliams, Fenimore Cooper: The Critical Heritage
(London, 1973), 267-268.
3.
[anon.] “Ben Pie, or The Indian Murderer: A Tale Founded on Facts,” The Minerva 3 (1825), 113117; Rural Repository 2, (1825), 33-35, 41-43; see also Warren F. Broderick, “Ben Pie, a Native
American Tale,” Hudson Valley Regional Review 17 (March, 2000), 24-52.
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4.
Mary M[aria] Chase, “Kaunameek,” The Columbian Magazine 8 (November, 1847), 217-221; see
also Mary Maria Chase, Mary M. Chase and Her Writings, ed. Henry Fowler (Boston, 1855); see
also Shirley Dunn, The Mohican World 1680 -1750 (Fleischmanns, NY, 2000), 192 et. seq.
5.
Joseph Bruchac, Turtle Meat and Other Stories (Duluth, MN, 1992), 105-108.
6. Nathaniel B. Sylvester, “The Spirit Bride of the Tsa-sa-was-sa,” Indian Legends of Saratoga and of
the Upper Hudson Valley (Troy, NY, 1884), 28-34.
7.
Nathaniel B. Sylvester, “The Legend of Diamond Rock,” Historical Sketches of Northern New York
and the Adirondack Wilderness (Troy, NY, 1877), 206-220; reprinted in Indian Legends of Saratoga
and of the Upper Hudson Valley (Troy, NY, 1884), 35-47.
8. Ann Sophia [Witherspoon] Stephens, “Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter,” The
Ladies’ Companion and Literary Expository X (February-April, 1839), 188-195, 239-245, 258-269.
9.
David Murdoch, The Dutch Dominie of the Catskills; or, the Times of the Bloody Brandt (New York,
1861); reissued as The Royalist’s Daughter and the Rebels: or, The Dutch Dominie of the Catskills. A
Tale of the Revolution (New York, 1865).
10. Shirley Dunn, The Mohicans and Their Land 1609 -1730 (Fleischmanns, NY, 1994), 99; Benjamin
Brink, The Early History of Saugerties, 1660 -1825 (Kingston, NY, 1902), 10 -12.
11. T[homas] C. Harbaugh, The Hidden Lodge; or, The Little Hunter of the Adirondacks, April 9, 1878
[16 pp., in 3 columns] [Half Dime Library; 2 subsequent editions: Pocket Library, no. 114 as Piney
Paul, the Mountain Boy; or, The Little Arrow of the Adirondacks (March 17, 1886) and Half Dime
Library, no. 1167 (November, 1905)]; reissued, with relatively minor revisions, as The Mountain
Cat (London, 1882) [Jackson’s Novels, no. 4].
12. Nancy Huston Banks, [“George H. Preston,” pseud.] Hawkeye: A Sequel to the Deerslayer of James
Fenimore Cooper (Cincinnati, 1897).
13. Robert Chambers, The Hidden Children (New York, 1914).
14. Kenneth Roberts, Northwest Passage (Garden City, NY, 1937).
15. Don Cameron Shafer, Smokefires in Schoharie (New York, 1938).
16. Allena Champlin Best [“Erick Berry,” pseud.], Hudson Frontier (New York, 1942).
17. Allena Champlin Best [“Erick Berry,” pseud.], Seven Beaver Skins: A Story of the Dutch in New
Amsterdam (Philadelphia, 1948).
18. Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents (New York, 1959), vol. 8,
137-145.
19. Alfred B. Street, “The Indian Mound Near Albany,” Graham’s American Monthly Magazine of
Literature and Art 28 (February, 1846), 67.
20. Arnold Hill Bellows, The Legend of Utsayantha, and Other Folk-lore of the Catskills (Margaretville,
NY, 1945).
21. Elizabeth Speare, The Prospering (Boston, 1967).
22. Paul Bernard, Genesee Castle (Philadelphia, 1970).
23. Terry Elton, The Journey (Tarentum, PA, 2002).
24. Paul Block, Song of the Mohicans: A Sequel to James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans
(New York, 1995).
25. Robert Moss, The Firekeeper: A Narrative of the Eastern Frontier (New York, 1995).
26. Robert Moss, The Interpreter (New York, 1997).
27. Sara Donati, Into the Wilderness (New York, 1998).
28. Lynda Durrant, Echohawk (New York, 1996).
29. Lynda Durrant, Turtle Clan Journey (New York, 1999).
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